Allison Bush interviewed by Thurston Moore on 6/9/06
(ring, ring)
A Hello this is Allison
T: Allison its Thurston
A: Hey Thurston man, how are you?
T: Hey you psyched to go on tour?
A: Fuck yeah.
T: You got your drums all polished?
A: No they're pretty dented and nasty looking...but they look great.
T: Yeah, keep em nasty. Hey what kind of sticks do you use?
A: 5A
T: Oh yeah is that a matter of choice or is that because they are the kind of sticks that like the dude don bowles in the germs uses or something?
A: No, I used the bigger ones cuz I thought that would make me more of a badass but then they started giving me blisters cuz I got little hands
T: Right. That's no problem, using a more sophisticated stick. Hey are you guys into doing an awesome color skateboard?
A: Hell yeah, man, that's the dream right there.
T: We're going to ask different people to do skateboards, like Dennis Tyfus, John Olson, Kim Gorden, Maya Miller and Bill Nace.
A: Killer.
T: We were actually thinking at one point of have John Olson do the Awesome Color skateboard.
A; That'd be rad.
T: When did you first meet him?
A: Shit, like 5 years ago maybe
T: Did you grow up there, in the Detroit area?
A: I grew up in Flint, about an hour north of Detroit.
T: What were the good bands in Flint when you were growing up?
A: Grand Funk.
T: Did you ever see Grand Funk Railroad?
A: (disappointed) No. I never did.
T: Did you ever drive by Mark Farner's house?
A: No, but I did drive by the Grand Funk Railroad overpass, where someone spray-painted "Grand Funk Railroad Forever."
T: Oh yeah, that's legendary.
A: Yeah, people keep spraying over it but it still says Grand Funk.
T: Do you miss Flint?
A: Not really. I miss some of my friends from there, and I go back to visit my folks like once or twice a year. That's good enough for me.
T: Did you play in a band there, like in high school?
A: I jammed with people but never really got anything going because there really weren't any venues in Flint and all the DIY spaces were overwhelmed with dickheads, you know?
T: Yeah.
A: I kind of missed out on the 90s; all the indie rock. That's when I was really into The Stooges and The Misfits and stuff, so I'd go to those shows but wasn't feeling the vibe and all the kids would just check you out, see if you were cool and me and my friend would just go back to his place and watch horror movies and listen to punk rock.
T: What turned you on to The Misfits and The Stooges?
A: The first music I got into was thrash through skateboarding. That turned me onto a bunch of different bands. That's probably how I got turned onto The Stooges. I have an older sister and one day one of her friends was playing a Misfits tape and I really dug it so I went into her room and took it.
T: Do you remember the first gig you went to?
A: Uhh... I'm trying to remember the first real gig that I went to, cause I went to some that were like "little kid gets taken to a gig in the park".
T: Right. Do you remember the first gig that you went to that was by choice like you thought "Okay this is what I want to do."
A: Yeah. But I don't remember the names of the bands that I saw. It was like local contemporary rock. It wasn't anything that struck me.
T: That was like 90s style, right?
A: Yeah, it was at a pizza place. I can remember that much, but I can't remember the name of the bands.
T: How was it that you got involved with Aaron Dilloway and all those Detroit freaks?
A: Found them through skateboarding, actually. I was living in Ann Arbor going to school and I met some kids one night. We'd just get together and skate. That's how I met Michael, he came over to my house to skate. He was living with Aaron and John [Dilloway and Olson]. This was right before Violent Ramp started.
T: Did you ever see Violent Ramp?
A: I was at every one of their shows.
T: Did you ever skate at one of their shows?
A: All of them. At the very first show, and the very last show. They played my going away party. I am their number one fan.
T: How did you guys meet Derek?
A: I went to a party in Ann Arbor one night and Derek was there and I don't know why we just started talking to each other. I guess we were kind of the outsiders of the party. I had ridden up on a moped and I had a bunch of fireworks and we were lighting off these fireworks and we realized we had a bunch of the same friends like Nate Young. Yeah, and we were just talking all night, lighting off fireworks and then the cops came and the people told us to be quiet at the party but we kept being loud. So, you know we just remembered each other. He moved to New York like right after that. Then I came to Aaron Dilloway's solo show in New York and Derek was there and we were like "aw shit man, what the hell you doin here?".
T: Why did you move to new York?
A: Because I wanted to skate.
T: Really? New york wasn't really known as a skater town, I guess that sort of came later. Was it also to work on movies?
A: Yeah. I wanted to do that.
T: Is that what you studied in school? Was it like video or film or screenwriting?
A: I never studied screenwriting. I never really wanted to be a director. When I do stuff now I work on props and makeup, stuff like that. I'm really into the visual stuff and I like working on sets.
T: You guys just shot a video. What was that all about?
A: It was a green screen. We did it with our friend Andrew. He made a bunch of karaoke videos once for a project and he kind of got hooked on making videos for bands. He had an idea to make a video for us, and we just came up with it one night.
T: Yeah it sounds wild.
A: Yeah its gonna be fun. I don't think it will make any sense to anyone besides us, but it'll look cool and it will be fun.
T: We'll put it up on the site.
A: Rad. Yeah we spent our 6/06/06 in Times Square, so that was pretty Satanic. Evil, I guess I should say.
T: When did you start playing drums?
A: When I was 16 or 17.
T: Did you instantly take to it?
A: Yeah I always wanted to play drums. I was always tapping on everything, I'm a nervous tapper.
T: Who are some of your favorite drummers?
A: Man, so many.
T: ROBO?
A: ROBO, yeah, I'm also a huge Black Flag fan.
T: The dude in ZZ Top?
A: The dude in ZZ Top is a badass, man.
T: Completely.
A: Scott Asheton definitely. I always thought he was a killer drummer, in a killer band.
T: What about Buddy Rich?
A: I like him on that skit on The Muppets, where he's up against Animal. That's pretty cool. We just watched The Muppet Movie last night, and we were freaking out on how cool [Dr. Teeth and] The Electric Mayhem is. Right now I'm into some hardcore guys from Japan. This dude in the band Frantid is really good.
T: What's the name of the band?
A: Frantid. [pronounced Frahn-teed].
T: Fun cheese?
A: Frantid. I think it's Swedish or something but they're a Japanse band.
T: How do you spell it?
A: F-R-A-N-T-I-D
T: Frantid.
A: He's pretty crazy. And Kid Millions from Oneida.
T: Yeah, I've heard of Kid Millions.
A: He's pretty out of control.
T: You're playing with those guys tonight, right?
A: Yeah, we're playing with them. It's gonna be awesome.
T: Who came up with the name Awesome Color?
A: I don't know.. Derek was telling this story and I said something was an awesome color and we were like "wow that would be a great band name." You know that game where you come up with something and everyone's like that would be a great band name, that's kind of how it came about.
T: It's very simple. When I first saw the band name listed I thought you guys were like some psychedelic drone band. Like mushroom-tripping kind of psychedelic drone rockers.
A: Well I think we got the mushroom-tripping aspect. But we don't have any drone yet. You know every time I go to drone shows now people are sitting down. What the hell's up with that?
T: Yeah you gotta get used to that. They want to start listening to you now.
A: It's weird. We went to a Heathen Shame gig last week and people were sitting down for that, there wasn't a single person standing still on that stage. I kind of felt that was a bummer.
T: Heathen Shame are great. Fucking sick shit going on there.
T: Andrew kesin wants to know what your favorite song on your record is?
A: I'd say Grown or Ride'n.
T: I hear you. Yeah, the record came out fucking cool. People seem to be really psyched about it. I get nothing but good responses from people who don't know anything about Awesome Color. You guys have some new tunes?
A: Yeah, we got almost a whole album full of new tunes. We've been playing them a lot lately.
T: I think I heard some, when I saw you guys play at glass house you played a few new jams.
A: And you'll hear them out on the road.
T: Do you play any other kind of music besides what you play in Awesome Color? Do you do any solo tabletop junk noise performance music?
A: No. I haven't come up with the money to afford those fancy pedals. Maybe sometime soon. Michael and I have Weirding Modules.
T: Weirding Modules?
A: Yeah.
T: Sounds good. I'll look for your myspace.
A: We don't have a myspace. We contact you through our music. Don't try to get in touch with us.
T: Sounds like a good idea.
A: Awesome color is my first band.
T: That's good, it's kind of like the Dead Boys in a way. The only way to leave the band was to die. Or so they said.
A: You can leave our band but we'll just have to give you a beating.
T: That's right. It's like NWA.
A: Sure. We're a gang, not a band.
T: Record release party gig at Cakeshop next week. What's the score? What's going on?
A: We got Mouthus playing with us, who you know, and Bad Party is a band from Detroit and they got a 12" coming out for their first New York gig, so it should be a good time. It's too bad, every band in Brooklyn that we hang out with is out on tour, but that's a good reason to not see somebody.
T: Yeah, it'll still be righteous.
A: It'll be a good send-out. The Cakeshop's been a lot of fun, and really good to us. There are so many places in Manhattan that I really want to play.
T: Have you ever dyed your hair?
A: Yeah, when I was in high school. All the time, man.
T: Green?
A: Every damn color you can think of.
T: Do you have any tattoos?
A: Oh man, that's reminding me of Duane Allman, I'm No Angel (sings): "Come and let me show you my tattoo..." aw, man. Michael has a killer tattoo that [Aaron] Dilloway gave him, it's on the back of his neck.
T: Dilloway gives tats?
A: Yeah.
T: I didn't know that.
A: Yeah. You just gotta put on the right record.
T: Well we're doing a Dilloway record this year.
A: Sweet man. Yeah, his solo stuff is banging. I was really into the Beggar Master record. I thought that was some good stuff.
T: I got to call him right now.
A: [it's 10:30am] You'll wake him up.
T: That's the best time to get him.
A: Man, I lived with those guys for a summer and every morning it was like Aaron walking out at like 11 in the morning, hair sticking up saying "I feel weird", wearing a Circle Jerks shirt, looking dazed.
T: He's married now, that's all changed.
A: Yeah, him and Olson, man. Pretty much. Those guys are all married in the fuckin Ypsi crew [stands for Ypsilanti, MI].
T: Have you ever gotten in a fight at a gig you were playing?
A: Just with each other, with Derek. Derek used to stand on my bass drum, and I thought that was pretty cool but then there were a few times when I thought it might have broken when he jumped off of it, when he got too drunk, and you know, he's a pretty big guy. So now I push him off of my drum, or hit him with my sticks until he gets down, and I hit him hard. He gets kind of pissed.
T: Yeah, but it's your shit. You don't stand on top of his guitar, do you?
A: No, man. He stands on top of his guitar when he's playing it with his feet. He hasn't done that in a while though.
More about Awesome Color:
ecstaticpeace/Awesome Color
myspace/AwesomeColor